Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann Cavoukian, appointed Executive Director of the Ryerson University Institute for Privacy and Big Data

Canada NewsWire

TORONTO, March 19, 2014

TORONTO, March 19, 2014 /CNW/ - Ryerson University today announced the
appointment of Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann
Cavoukian, as the Executive Director of the new Ryerson University
Institute for Privacy and Big Data. Currently a distinguished visiting
professor at Ryerson, Dr. Cavoukian's appointment will take effect at
the conclusion of her unprecedented third term as Commissioner, on July
1, 2014.

"It has been an honour to serve as the Information and Privacy
Commissioner for the past three terms, spanning over 15 years. Together
with my hardworking and devoted staff, we have built a world-class
agency, renowned for our innovation and leadership in access and
privacy. We are grateful for the support of the many Ontarians who have
shared with us their appreciation for the work we do and the impact we
have had," says Dr. Cavoukian. "Having advised the Legislature that I
would not be considering a fourth term as Commissioner (three is more
than enough!), I am delighted to be able to pursue my passion for
preserving privacy, well into the future, with such a progressive
university as Ryerson."

Big Data - the acquisition, storage, processing, analysis and use of
large data sets - has the potential to enable innovations and
facilitate critical social interests with impacts felt at every level,
from invaluable discoveries in health research, to mapping of human
behaviour in the digital world, to management of natural resources.
Ryerson's cross university Big Data Initiative (BDI) focuses on
developing new tools and applying those tools to advance organizational
performance across sectors. BDI brings together existing centres that
collaborate with industry partners to drive the development of new Big
Data based products and services, including Ryerson's Centre for the
Study of Commercial Activity, Ryerson's Centre for Cloud and Context
Aware Computing, and the Data Science Laboratory. The new Institute for
Privacy and Big Data will help ensure privacy is considered at every
stage of the process.

"The Institute for Privacy and Big Data will bring together experts from
both within the university and beyond, to develop new ways to protect
and promote people's privacy in the digital age," says Mohamed Lachemi,
provost and vice president academic. "I would like to welcome world
renowned privacy expert Dr. Cavoukian to Ryerson to lead this new
initiative. I know her knowledge and expertise will have immediate
impact and be of immeasurable benefit to our students."

The new Institute for Privacy and Big Data, housed within Ryerson's
Faculty of Science is an important component of the university's
strategy, demonstrating how to harness the power of Big Data in ways
that fully respects privacy. The Institute's main objectives include:

Promote the development of technologies that analyze data within an
appropriate context and privacy-protective sphere, and applying those
technologies in a positive-sum manner to the various sectors of Big
Data in order to improve upon the value and utility of the associated
analytics, all while strongly protecting the privacy of data-subjects.

Provide an educational platform to disseminate the techniques and
procedures of privacy enhanced Big Data analytics through research
programs.

Provide an incubation platform for start-up companies to utilize these
technologies for new markets and applications, uniquely positioning
them as Privacy by Design applications, delivering both privacy and Big Data analytics.

Ryerson's existing Privacy and Cyber Crime Institute (currently within
the Ted Rogers School of Management) and the research conducted within
it, including areas such as workplace privacy, data breaches, identity
theft and online privacy, will become part of the new Institute under
Dr. Cavoukian's leadership. The new Institute will serve as a hub for
Ryerson students, faculty and staff engaged in data-driven training,
discovery, innovation and commercialization.

Dr. Cavoukian will take the helm of the new Ryerson Institute for
Privacy and Big Data effective July 1, with an official launch to
follow in the 2014-15 academic year.

About Dr. Ann CavoukianOntario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann Cavoukian, is
recognized as one of the leading privacy experts in the world. An
avowed believer in the role that technology can play in protecting
privacy, her ground-breaking 1995 paper with the Netherlands, on
advancing privacy protection through the pursuit of privacy-enhancing
technologies (PETs), is now part of the industry lexicon. Dr. Cavoukian
is best known as the creator of Privacy by Design, which was
unanimously approved as an international standard for privacy
protection by the International Assembly of Privacy Commissioners and
Data Protection Authorities at their annual conference in 2010 in
Jerusalem. Since then, Privacy by Design has grown exponentially,
having been operationalized in nine application areas and translated
into 35 languages.

About Ryerson UniversityRyerson University is Canada's leader in innovative, career-oriented
education and a university clearly on the move. With a mission to serve
societal need, and a long-standing commitment to engaging its
community, Ryerson offers more than 100 undergraduate and graduate
programs. Distinctly urban, culturally diverse and inclusive, the
university is home to more than 38,000 students, including 2,300
master's and PhD students, nearly 2,700 faculty and staff, and more
than 155,000 alumni worldwide. Research at Ryerson is on a trajectory
of success and growth: externally funded research has doubled in the
past four years. The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education is
Canada's leading provider of university-based adult education. For more
information, visit www.ryerson.ca